Pieces of Black
by Lauand
Summary: Collection of drabbles, snippets and ficlets centred on Schwarz. Some are totally gen, others have yaoi in it. When that's the case, the pairing is CrawfordSchuldig.
1. Destiny

This is a collection of drabbles, ficlets and snippets based on Schwarz and frequently Schuldig/Crawford centred. The rating varies from G to R, some are totally gen, others have some yaoi in it. They are not overly original, but this is how I envision them, and sometimes it fits with the point of view other authors also have. _Colour_ and _The Light in Your Eyes_ part from ideas I read in other fictions. I can't name the original source because I don't remember it, but I'm fairly sure the initial idea wasn't mine, although I wanted to write my version about it. I just had to mention it.

* * *

**PIECES OF BLACK **

**_Destiny_**

"Hey, Crawford. Say 'Destiny'."

The Oracle didn't even consider the petition worthy of an answer. He just silently raised an eyebrow over the newspaper at Schuldig's odd plea.

"Come on, man," the redhead insisted. "What does it cost you? Just say it."

Crawford ignored the German altogether and resumed his reading.

"Just once, ok?" Schuldig pursued it. "Say 'Destiny' once and I'll leave you alone." That earned him a doubtful glance from those cold hazel eyes. "At least for a while…" he added truthfully.

The American bastard kept on reading, paying no attention to the telepath's begging. He didn't understand Schuldig's sudden interest in making him speak random words aloud, but he wasn't interested enough to inquire about it. Besides, trying to get a straight answer from the twisted redhead always ended up causing him a headache.

Schuldig, on the other hand, knew perfectly well why he wanted Crawford to say 'Destiny' aloud. As the fucked-up assassin he knew he was, he believed he had earned the right to get his kicks out of the weirdest sources. And he had recently discovered that the one thing that never failed to turn him on, was the way his leader said the word 'Destiny'.

There was something special in the tone of that deep, firm voice when he spoke that particular term. Schuldig suspected it was related to the fact that Crawford was a precog, and as such, when he said 'Destiny', he wasn't implying an unmovable, established fate, but the carefully planned event that would come when and how the Oracle wished. The arrogance that the leader of Schwarz usually displayed turned into a promise when he pronounced that word, and the finality of it, the absolute faith it inspired in Schuldig's sceptical heart, was enough to raise the fine hairs of his arms and to make his cock stir. And why not? After all, Crawford was nothing if not sexy.

"Pleeeeeease…"

And then, it happened. Unexpectedly and for no comprehensible reason, Crawford decided to indulge Schuldig and, lowering the newspaper and gazing intensely at the annoying telepath, he uttered:

"Destiny."

Closing his eyes in delight, Schuldig grinned and exhaled happily in a relieved sigh, leaning back in the armchair, letting the sound be replayed again and again in his head.

Leaving the blissful telepath to his weird little pleasures, Crawford turned his gaze back to the newspaper.


	2. Wants

_**Wants**_

Schuldig wants Crawford because he's the one man in the world whose mind he cannot break.

Crawford wants Schuldig because he's the only person in the world whom he cannot predict.

Nagi wants Schuldig and Crawford to be together because they are such freaking bastards that he thinks they really deserve each other.

Farfarello wants Crawford and Schuldig to be together because a pair that spends as much time pissing each other off as they do fucking must certainly be hurtful to God.


	3. Colour I

_**Colour**_

Sometimes, Schuldig accepted spending time with Naoe just because he thought the teenager needed to get away from Crawford's bad influence.

"Tell me, Nagi. Which colour do you think clashes the most with forest green, dirty white, fiery orange, bright blue and canary yellow?"

The youth gave it some thinking.

"…Whorish pink?"

Schuldig grinned and took the ugly pink sunglasses from the rack. Then, adjusting them on his forehead, right above his bandana, looked at himself in the little mirror the shades expositor provided.

"Exactly."

Happy with his election and ignoring the resigned look on Nagi's grave face, he sauntered out the shop looking forward to Crawford's reaction at his new acquisition.


	4. Relationships

**_Relationships_**

They could hear Schuldig and Crawford's yells from the couch they were sprawling on, even if the older members of the team were in a closed room at the other side of the large apartment and the TV volume was a few notches higher than ususal. Without taking his eyes of the screen, Nagi tiredly asked:

"Don't you think Schuldig has a typical relationship of love/hate with Crawford?"

"Naa…" The Irishman didn't even give it much thought. "Schuldig has a typical love/hate relationship with himself. With Crawford he just has a pissing-off/fucking agreement."


	5. Light in Your Eyes

**_Light in your eyes_**

"There's a light in your eeeeeyes, when the sun doesn't shiiiiiiiiine…!!!"

Schuldig didn't sing as much as he bellowed. He happily went out of the bathroom, a towel around his waist, another scrubbing his orange hair dry and kept on shouting.

"Where do we go to be cleaaaaaaar or-something-like-thaaaaat…!"

And when he didn't remember the lyrics, he just made them up.

"There's a light in you eeeeeeyes, na-na-naaaaa-na-na-naaaaa…!!"

The German didn't bothered closing the door to his bedroom or lowering the blinds as he searched for fresh clothes and changed.

"So, tell me, tell meeeeeeee…!!!!!!!"

He even gestured theatrically, even if no one was actually watching him.

"Why don't you belieeeeeeeve??!!!!"

The telepath even started to dance following the rhythm of the music in his head.

"Oooooh, oooooooooooooh…!!!"

This was the climax of the song, so he sang even louder.

"Baby, tell meeeeeeee…!!!!!"

Three rooms from his, a door violently slammed open and the altered stomping and yelling of Nagi could be easily listened to from every point in the flat, and even the building.

"CRAWFORD! EITHER YOU FORCE YOUR DAMNED TELEPATH TO RAISE HIS SHIELDS AGAINST THE TEENAGER IN LOVE IN THE FIFTH FLOOR OR I'M OUT OF THIS TEAM FOR GOOD!!"

Some stomping and the door slammed closed was the only sound in the apartment for a few seconds.

"There's a light in your eeeeeyes…!!!!"

* * *

_A/N: "Light In Your Eyes" is a song by the awesome band Gotthard, and I associate always their music to Schuldig, I don't know why._


	6. Powergames

**_Powergames_**

For Nagi, hacking was a powergame.

For Schuldig, fucking was a powergame.

For Farfarello, killing was a powergame.

For Crawford, LIFE was a powergame.


	7. Heart I

**_Heart I_**

If there was something about Farfarello that he would have never expected, it was that the Irishman warned him about his relationship with Crawford.

"That only can lead to heartbreak." The madman ruefully said.

Schuldig smirked and condescendingly reassured him:

"But my dear Farfie, you're not taking into consideration the fact that, for that to be true, at least one of us must have a heart."

The berserker just shook his head and insisted.

"You're 'Schuldig'. One cannot feel guilty without a heart to weigh the guilt upon."


	8. Heart II

**_Heart II_**

Sex with Crawford was good. Above average. High above average. Sometimes Schuldig thought that the American was unable to do something that was less than perfect, less than right. And that included fucking.

These were the thoughts the telepath harboured as the Oracle pounded steadily into him. Because even if the sex with Crawford was mind-blowing, that didn't mean he couldn't think coherently in the meanwhile. Schuldig had never understood why people insisted in saying that a bit of rubbing and a kiss or two could prevent you from the ability to think. One could even talk, sing, laugh… do nearly anything during sex. He should know, he used to do it.

Today, though, he was being unusually quiet and compliant. Pensive, maybe. He was sure that Crawford had noticed – of course he would… nothing escaped the Oracle's attention – but the American hadn't commented on it. Unlike Schuldig, he was not prone to start conversation while engaged in bedroom activities.

There, almost there… the pleasure was getting all-consuming, too intense to be withheld. Without Schuldig telling him anything, Crawford somehow knew and removed one of his hands from his brace in the bed to touch him in rhythm with his thrusts. Less than a minute later, Schuldig's back arched and his body shook as soft noises made his throat vibrate and he let the most intense pleasure in the fucking Universe invade him and abandon him again shortly afterwards. Crawford followed not much later, quiet and subtle as he was, and they lay there sweaty and panting, side by side, their looks directed at a ceiling neither was really seeing.

There wasn't usually a cuddling session afterwards. Crawford was not a touchy person and although Schuldig loved physical contact, he despised the vulnerability and intimacy such an act connoted. He touched and was touched, but on his terms.

It was then surprising that after getting back his breath, the German crawled on top of his leader and laid first his hand, then his head on the right side of Crawford's firm chest.

The American raised an eyebrow and calmly asked what the Hell Schuldig was doing.

"Shhh…!" the redhead replied, "I'm testing a theory."

The other eyebrow joined the first at that statement.

"Are you making a study about how the heartbeat rate increases during sex?"

Schuldig couldn't help but grin at his leader's clinical guess. He found it amusing when Crawford behaved so typically Crawford.

"Naa…" the German denied, " I'm just making sure the rumours are false and you, indeed, have a heart."


	9. Angel

**_Angel_**

_Schuldig POV._

Ideas and concepts are a very relative thing. Believe me, I know what I'm talking about. That is, after all, my area of expertise.

So, when I say the word angel, you may think of white wings and long tunics whereas I would be meaning glinting glasses and Armani suits. And guns. Most people would be freaked out to learn that my concept of angel includes killing for money. Or for power. Or out of fucking convenience. Just because in the long run, a death is sometimes more profitable than a life.

But what we both convey when talking about angels is the idea of a superior being that makes you believe, that gives you back a purpose, no matter how weird it may be, that compels you to follow his light (or his darkness) because you know what? Everything is gonna be alright. An angel is the only fucking thing that is able to save you from yourself.

So maybe, just maybe, when you're talking about blond hair and sweet smiles, and I do about cold eyes looking down the barrel of a gun, we're both referring to the same thing.


	10. Defiance

_**Defiance**_

"Being a man and having your fiery orange hair, how come you let it grow long?"

"Because I'm a man and have fiery orange hair."


	11. Needs

**_Needs _**

"Hey, let's play cards."

Crawford didn't use to indulge Schuldig, so it was sort of a surprise when the tall precognitive got up from his comfortable and expensive-looking armchair and walked up to the orange haired German, neatly taking a seat in front of Schuldig's shuffling hands.

Not questioning his good luck, the telepath grinned and began to deal. He couldn't help but remember a scene of the past, so long ago, when they were both still at Rosenkreuz.

----------------

"You'll be terminated if you keep on giving trouble."

It was rare that a senior approached him, and to warn him with no apparent threat in his voice, no less. Schuldig wondered what the fuck the tall bastard wanted out of him.

"Oh, really?" Slow and mocking. As if the redhead didn't give a damn. Well, to be honest, he didn't. At that time, he had thought that he would rather let himself be killed than be tamed.

"I can convince them to let you live."

Ah. The heart of the matter. Four-eyes seemed to be quite straightforward for a Rosenkreuz spawn.

"And what will it cost me? A blowjob?"

It wasn't such an appalling prospect. He had done it before and this tall freak was above average. He knew that the half mocking tone wouldn't let Four-eyes know for certain if he was just laughing at him or not.

"No," was the calm response. The tall stranger didn't show either whether he had believed Schuldig's offer to be true or not. "You'll accept my orders as the leader of your team."

Schuldig's half-hooded eyes concealed well his surprise and excitation. Being part of a field team meant what he had always pined for: freedom. Mistrustful, though, as life taught one to be, he closed the short distance that separated them and breathed over the tall senior's lips:

"If I give you what you want, will you give me what I need?"

The hazel eyes of the stranger went slightly out of focus and the dark-haired man concentrated on something that Schuldig could only interpret as the use of a talent. The German didn't sense an interference with his shields, the room about him or the minds of those around them, so he supposed that Four-eyes was a precog or something. Schuldig didn't understand, why was the freak scanning the future when he could just… He could have laughed at the sudden realization - instead of crushing his lips and fucking him senseless against the wall as the rhetorical question and body language would lead a normal person to, the freakish bastard was consulting the future for an answer!

Incredulity well hidden, Schuldig was shocked nonetheless when the stranger's gaze focused again on the present to give him his answer.

"Yes."

Schuldig smirked.

-------------

He was losing and had no way to know if Crawford was cheating him with his talent or not. He refrained from asking, though. If the bastard was, Crawford would eventually make him know that he knew Schuldig was cheating in a more conventional manner and would stop the game. But the precog, until now, hadn't, so Schuldig kept on playing. And losing. With marked cards. Damn.

Schuldig had always loved gambling. It was in his blood to play games. And when one reached a certain age, no game was fun if there wasn't some wager at stake. He sometimes played the roulette and other luck games, but the real challenge was when the outcome depended on your skill and ability (that included cheating without being caught), not on the whim of a fucking piece of wood to stop spinning.

However, being what he was, playing cards was a bore. He always read the head of his counterparts before he could shield himself not to do it. It got the fun out of everything.

With Crawford, it was different. The bastard's shields were so strong that Schuldig couldn't even catch a glimpse of his most superficial thoughts. So he was the ideal partner to play with. And although the tall American didn't seem to enjoy the game (not like Schuldig did), he sometimes complied and played some hands.

Schuldig never questioned Crawford about it and just had his fun as he chain-smoked under his leader's reprobatory scowl. The Oracle never told him to put out his cigarettes, though, so the redhead kept on going.

It was at moments like these that Schuldig went back to that weird first encounter and the certain answer that tall bastard had delivered to him: "Yes."

Hiding his grin behind his cigarette as he chose the next card to throw, Schuldig couldn't help but admit that the dark-haired fucker, as always, had been right.


	12. Colour II

_**Colour II**_

Surprising a precog was a nearly impossible task, but Schuldig thrived on challenges.

"Hey, Brad, man. Being the hot guy that you are, why do you insist on wearing those horrible clashing colours?"

The look of shock on Crawford's handsome face was worth the whole week Schuldig knew he wasn't getting any.


	13. Knowledge

_**Knowledge**_

Nagi had the expression of someone who knew more than you and scorned you for it.

Schuldig, the one of somebody who knew what you were thinking and found it extremely amusing.

Farfarello just seemed to know about five thousand ways to kill you slowly and painfully and be ready to enjoy every minute of it.

Crawford's smirk expressed, simply, that he knew it ALL.


	14. Asskissing

_**Ass-kissing**_

Schuldig didn't like Takatori. No surprise there. Schuldig didn't like people in general and patrons in particular. His perpetual smirk was his firm statement about it.

"I can't get how you do it," the German commented to Crawford one day, "I couldn't suck up to assholes all day."

The Oracle of Schwarz didn't miss a beat and calmly replied.

"That's probably one of the reasons why I'm the leader and you're not."

Schuldig let himself fall on the couch and winced at the thought of Crawford humouring that pigheaded fool in his idiotic demands.

"I don't even grasp why you bother. Nobody likes ass-kissers."

"But everybody likes having their asses kissed."

A short silence floated in the air until the redhead finally broke it.

"…I don't."

It was damned difficult to make Crawford laugh out loud, but somehow, Schuldig always managed to do so. Most times unintentionally. Maybe that was why Crawford loved him.


	15. Women

_**Women**_

Nagi was brooding, Farfarello observed with detachment as the teenager flopped down on the couch beside him. It wasn't long until the telekinetic started talking.

"Why does Crawford dislike Tot so much?"

The Irishman didn't looked at him. He didn't even sighed in resignation at the slightly whining tone of his young teammate as he neutrally replied.

"She's a woman. Crawford can't stand women. He believes they're selfish, egocentric, shrewd and twisted, and that they use men to get what they want and the next moment betray them."

There was a silence after that.

"Oh." Nagi spoke at last; then, after a short pause to wonder about it, he asked, "then, how come he likes Schuldig?"

Farfarello opened his mouth to reply but after a few seconds, he frowned and closed it again.


	16. Halloween

_**Halloween**_

"Trick or Treat!"

It was bad enough to have been forced to stand up and get the door, but what irked Crawford the most was the fact that he hadn't foreseen what idiot would ring the damned doorbell when he was the only one at home.

"Schuldig, " Crawford was deliberately clear in his enunciation, "you have a key. You might consider using it."

"Come on, Brad, it's Halloween! That would ruin the spirit. " Lazily, Schuldig leaned on the doorframe and, with some effort, Crawford refrained from punching that annoying smirk off his telepath's face. "So… trick or treat?"

The Oracle was nothing if not patient.

"Schuldig, you're not even disguised. Will you please come in or go away?" He inquired.

"Of course I'm disguised!" Crawford raised an eyebrow at that. Certainly, the green coat, the more or less white pants, the yellow bandana, pink shades and mop of pumpkin hair could count as a cosplay if it wasn't for the fact that it was the usual attire the telepath favoured. Seeing that his leader didn't catch it, Schuldig elaborated, "I'm disguised of an evil assassin. A telepathic one. That's both supernatural and scary; it fits the requirements. So, I'm disguised. Will you give me some fucking candy already?"

The slamming of the door in his face was no surprise at all. In fact, it only made his smirk stretch wider on his lips.

"Well," he murmured as he soundlessly pulled the keys from his pocket, "I guess that means you choose trick…"


	17. In A Tree

_**In A Tree**_

Of all the close-minded, self-righteous, plainly stupid Weiß kittens, the one Schuldig tolerated the most, was Yohji. Even with the melodramatic tendency to angst over a dreadful past that all of the white hunters shared, Yohji at least acknowledged that there was a wide range of grays between the black and the white, and he not only refused to believe himself a better person than anyone, or his fight more just, but he also indulged in the committing of sins with the rest of the humankind.

Maybe that was the reason why, one night, the moon caught the red-haired telepath and the former detective, both drunk as fishes, making out like crazy in the back alley of a fashionable nightclub.

In the middle of it, though, they couldn't shake the insidious feeling that the other was not tall enough, or that the shoulders were too narrow. That the hair was too long and the wrong colour. That the clothes were not what their hands were expecting. That the lips didn't kiss right. That the taste of the other's passion was missing something. That the touches were too warm, but not hot enough. That it should have been an earring here or some glasses there. That this was not what they were really searching for.

It was with that simultaneous, sudden realization, that they abruptly pulled apart, as if repulsed.

"Oh my God…"

"Oh my fucking God…"

"Oh my fucking, fucking God..!"

"We're so…"

"No! Don't say it!"

"So…"

"OH MY GOD…!"

"…so fucking _**whipped**_!"

After a long silence, the other finally retorted.

"I'm quite sure that's not the word I was thinking of…"

"I'm a fuckin' telepath. If I say that's the word you had in your head, then that's the fuckin' word. Are we clear?"

A pause again. A hesitant comment, then.

"But… I wasn't exactly thinking in words. It was more like a concept…" Yohji slowly enunciated, as if making sure he didn't slur, "…and it was closer to…"

"No, no, no!! Don't fuckin' say it!!"

"And why not?" Balinese frowned. "It's just a word…"

"You didn't want me to say it aloud either!"

"But that was before I knew you were more scared of it than me…"

"Just don't!" The German frantically searched for his damned coat in the dark alley. Even falling-down-drunk, how could someone not find such a big, green thing?

"Ooooookaaaaaay…" the lanky blonde amiably agreed while he leaned drunkenly against the brick wall, pleasantly grinning.

"Aaaarghhh!!! And stop thinking about it!!"

There it was. The coat. Bordering on a nervous breakdown, the redhead grabbed the discarded garment and fled as fast as his stumbling legs permitted him, with the damned kitten's voice sing-songing sweetly in his brain.

_/Crawford and Schuldig sat in a tree…/_


	18. Family

_**Family**_

Schwarz was like a little family. Or so Schuldig supposed. As every talented child Rosenkreuz recruited, he hadn't had much reference to compare. But according to American T.V. series, they sure looked like one.

Nagi was the youngest son. Quiet, obedient, and, as much as their line of work permitted, still an innocent who was able to fall in love with brainless, fluffy, stupid girls.

Farfarello was the older son. Fully immersed in existential crises and difficult to control, he acted more out of spite and cruelty than by true will. Just like a teenager ready to lash out at provocation.

The Elders of Eszett were like the stern grandparents, Schuldig decided laughing. Wrinkled and disapproving, but full of old power and money older still.

Crawford was, of course, the father. The authoritarian figure and anal-retentive wet blanket. There wasn't a mood killer like the Oracle.

And him… widening his eyes, Schuldig bolted from the sofa he had been lounging on and stalked, alarmed, to Crawford's office.

"I'M NOT THE MOTHER!" he exclaimed, upset, as soon as he crossed the door. Then he slammed it closed again.

Having lifted his gaze from the blueprints he was studying upon Schuldig's arrival, Crawford blinked.

"I do hope you're not. You're… peculiar enough without the added ability to bear children."

Schuldig could clearly hear the concept 'abnormal' in Crawford's wording, as was the Oracle's intention, but he preferred to stick to the original discussion.

"I mean, if we're a family and the Heads of Eszett are the grannies, Nagi is the son, Farfie the brother and you're the father, I refuse to being the mother!!"

Once again, Crawford blinked. Then inhaled. Finally, he exhaled. No matter how many years they had spent together, he would never understand the twisted idiosyncrasies of his red-haired telepath. He couldn't decide if that was a bad or a good thing, though. At least, he never got bored with Schuldig's boiling, refreshing, hyperactive mind around.

"Schuldig," he coolly explained, "no matter how you like to see our team, you're not maternal material, trust me on this."

"Then, who the fuck am I?"

A brief scan of the future let Crawford know that humouring his telepath would make this encounter shorter and happier than arguing the point with him. The Oracle took air.

"You're the father's male lover, a seed of evil in the midst of this family and an awful influence on the younger members, as well as a pain in the ass of the older ones."

Schuldig made a face as he reflected about it. Crawford could nearly see the gears turning in that orange head of his. Reaching his verdict, Schuldig conceded.

"Ok," he nodded, scratched briefly his right ear and reached for the knob again, "I'm cool with it."

He exited the room and closed the door, but Crawford didn't resume his study yet. He waited three, four seconds before the door opened again and Schuldig's head appeared through the space between the frame and the still half-closed door.

"But then, I expect great sex after you're done planning whatever you're planning, or I'll bring havoc to your little family."

After that, the mop of orange hair disappeared and the door shut again.

Crawford sighed. As if the telepath didn't wreak all the havoc he could already. Turning his attention to the blueprints, he distractedly mumbled.

"As long as you don't start calling me 'daddy'…"


	19. Relativity

_**Relativity**_

"Why are you always smirking?" Nagi asked him one day.

"Why aren't you?" Schuldig countered back.

Nagi dedicated his 'you're retarded' glare at him and insisted.

"Schuldig, one usually needs a reason to do something, not to not do it."

"Not for us," the redhead carefreely replied with a shrug, "Farfarello always needs a reason not to kill, Crawford usually needs a reason not to punch me, you need a reason not to look like a dead fish and I'd need a reason not to smirk."

Nagi still directed at him his 'you're retarded' look, but later, he couldn't help but reflect about the redhead's different point of view. One thing was clear: everything was always relative.


	20. Bonnie & Clyde

_**Bonnie & Clyde**_

They had been careless. Crawford was not pleased, but he was above complaining or showing even the slightest hint of annoyance. That would have meant that he considered they had gotten themselves in trouble and the Oracle refused to admit he was able to make mistakes. He didn't even think of himself as human, since, judging from what he knew of humankind, he was far better than that.

Schuldig, on the contrary, revelled in his own fuck-ups. He had obviously named himself as 'Schuldig' for a reason. So, even if he found himself in trouble, he wasn't especially contrite about it. Especially if it was partly his own fault. After all, the rush of the thrill, of unadulterated emotion that coursed through him after a kill, well… it was difficult to resist. It was primal, in a way. It was only logical, then, that he had tried to seduce Crawford when the bloodied, inert bodies barely four feet away from them hadn't even started to cool. It was more surprising that he had indeed succeeded and Crawford had pressed him against that blood-splattered wall and started to kiss him, to touch him, to jerk him off as if there was no tomorrow. As it seemed now, maybe there wouldn't be one.

The good thing and the bad thing about sex, was that it meddled with your gift. You couldn't read minds while your own brain was busy thinking 'Oh my God, yes, faster, yeah, like that, oh, yeeeeessss…!'. He supposed, in the light of the current events, that precognition was hindered, too. It was because of that, that they were now hunched together, taking turns shooting at the stupid bodyguards that didn't understand they were already unemployed, and thus, it was no use dying for a boss whom it was to late to save now, anyway.

Having emptied his clip, he paused to replace it while Crawford kept on shooting, keeping the bodyguards away. Noticing that he had still his pants open, red hair and still hard cock greeting his glance, the telepath started to chuckle. Crawford didn't find the situation so hilarious and kept on pulling the trigger. Schuldig joined him after a couple of seconds and they both stopped and crouched together behind the piece of furniture they used as cover when the other guys started to fire at them in earnest. How clichéd.

Schuldig turned to Crawford as the bullets sang and whistled around them. Stern and serious as ever, lips still glistening, dark and swollen, the precog looked incredibly hot.

"You know, Crawford?" The redhead commented lightly. "If I was able to love, I think I would fall for you."

The Oracle released the empty clip from his automatic and replaced it with a new one. No melodrama, no wide gestures, no excess of force… just the reassuring clack that indicated the clip was in place. And the briefest, most fleeting ghost of fondness in his smirk when he replied to the redhead.

"Likewise."

As if sharing a mind, after a few seconds of smirking at each other, they both turned at the same time and resumed their shooting.


	21. Loyalty

_**Loyalty**_

Schuldig taunted, pushed, challenged Crawford and his authority as intensely and as often as was practically possible. He talked back, ignored orders, messed with the others' personal possessions and annoyed the Hell out of everyone in Schwarz's household.

But once outside the barriers of their not so little home, just as an actor takes off and puts on a mask, he would obey his leader without hesitation, turning all his defiance, all his aggressive insolence to the world outside.

The change was so complete that not even his teammates could be totally sure who was the real Schuldig, and who was the persona he pretended to be.

But Crawford knew. It was his job, after all.

For that reason, when even the ruthless telepath had asked him one day how come he put up with him, Crawford had just reached out to carefully graze the pads of his fingers against Schuldig's cheek. The bruise left by the golf club had faded ages ago, but the Oracle had impeccable memory and his touch hovered over the exact point that had taken the blunt of Takatori's attack. At that time, the stupid pig hadn't been aware that the only way he could have ever touched the redhead, was because Schuldig had allowed him to. Under Crawford's command.

Still waiting for a verbal response, it took Schuldig a while to make the connection and get Crawford's subtle reply.

When he was sure he had made his point, the American just smirked and turned away.


	22. Cliché

_**Cliché**_

"Crawford, I'm fed up with that "I'm-the-bad-guy-so-I'm-cold" attitude. I demand cuddling after sex."

"Schuldig, you know I don't like cuddling."

"I'm not asking you to like it. I'm asking you to do it."

Crawford sighed. Schuldig insisted.

"How many years have we been together? Eh? I'll tell you how many: a fucking lot. That's how many. And have I ever asked for anything unreasonable? Ok, scratch that, it was a weak argument. But is it really so much to ask that after leaving my ass like the Japanese flag you just hold me for five fucking minutes? And maybe some hair-petting would be nice, too. And when you're alrea…"

Abruptly and without a warning, Crawford grabbed him by the front of his shirt, pressed him against the nearest wall and kissed him hard, with all he got.

Schuldig hated himself for actually shutting up.


	23. Dare

_**Dare**_

For Nagi, a dare was getting inside Rosenkreuz information system and extracting coded information without being caught.

For Farfarello, a dare was reining in his temper and gripping his sanity tightly so as not to attract Eszett's undesired attention upon Schwarz's activities.

For Crawford, a dare was pretending everyday the most abject obedience to beings he totally despised because he needed to in order to succeed in his plans.

For Schuldig, a dare was being able to annoy the inexpressive brat, manipulate the clever nutcase, get into his anal-retentive boss' pants and live to see another day.

None of them had ever lost a challenge.


	24. Subtlety I

_**Subtlety**_

"Hey, Crawford," the redhead started casually, "do you think Nagi is a virgin?"

From his position on the large couch, Crawford glanced at the telepath.

"Schuldig…" he warned softly before turning his attention back to the TV.

"No, really… do you think he's a virgin?"

This time, Crawford replied without taking his eyes off the screen.

"That's not my business."

Schuldig insisted.

"Oh, but it should be. You can never know when a teenager is going to go all hormone-crazed and do something stupid… like fucking Tot, for example."

Crawford had too much class to gag, but a slight frown was proof enough of his displeasure at the possibility.

"Because platonic love with a ball of fluff is bad enough," Schuldig drilled on, "but just imagine them both together in bed. Or even worse, on the kitchen table. That would sure disturb the team dynamic, you know. Especially at breakfast time."

As all response, Crawford raised impassibly the volume a few notches. Schuldig, of course, could take a hint. He simply wouldn't.

"You know what would really freak me out?" The redhead added a telepathic echo to his physical voice. Even if the precog turned the TV set to full blast, he still would be able to hear him, "if it was Farfarello who was fucking Nagi. On the kitchen table."

Sometimes, the worst punishment you could apply to the noisy telepath was to ignore him. And Crawford could ignore him far better behind the locked door of his bedroom. So, he left the remote control on the table and calmly stood up and left the living-room.

When he heard the distinct click of Crawford's lock falling into place, Schuldig grinned.

"At last…" He mumbled.

The redhead toed his shoes off, sprawled on the sofa, took the remote and switched the channel. Good, the movie hadn't started yet.

With a contented sigh, Schuldig reflected: of all his teammates, Crawford was certainly the most difficult to manipulate, but also the most satisfying.


	25. Subconscience

_**Subconscience**_

Schuldig hated the cold. He hated the heat, too. Hated the rain. Hated the sun. Hated the snow. Hated the Summer, hated the Fall, hated the Winter. He abhorred the Spring. He hated the noise. He hated the silence. Hated the crowds and hated the solitude. Hated computers. Hated phones. Especially cell phones. He hated the radio. He hated pasta. Hated fish. Hated meat. He hated vegetables. He particularly detested Broccoli. He hated art. Hated science. He hated school. Absolutely loathed Rosenkreuz. He hated Eszett. Hated Takatori. Despised Takatori. Pissed on Takatori. He hated Japan. Hated the USA. Hated Germany. Just for principle, he hated Antarctica, too. He hated animals. He hated people. He scorned plants. He hated the theatre. Hated meetings. Hated reading minds. Hated Weiß. Hated work.

"Schuldig," Nagi asked him tiredly one day in the middle of his whining, "isn't there anything in the World that you find to your liking?"

Inadvertedly, just for the briefest moment, barely a fraction of a second, Schuldig's eyes flew fleetingly to the place where Crawford was standing, softly speaking to Takatori.

"No," he lied.


	26. Names

_**Names**_

"Crawford," Schuldig began, one lazy afternoon. The Oracle patiently waited for the telepath to finish the sentence, but the rest of the words never came. The precog didn't ask. Schuldig needed no prompting to talk freely. It was keeping quiet he seemed to have difficulties with.

"Crawford," the redhead repeated.

Again, the call was ignored. If it was a call.

Normal people changed from surnames to given names to pet names with time. Schuldig and Crawford had addressed each other as Schuldig and Crawford from the very moment they met, up until this very day. Normal people needed to express outwardly the evolution of their relationships. Assassins with super-powers were definitely not normal people.

So, at first, Schuldig had pronounced Crawford with a subtle insolence, not enough to sound rebellious but sufficent to let the other man know he wasn't impressed by his new assignment under the Oracle's command.

Soon, 'Crawford' became a vow of loyalty, the word that named the only man in all the organization (maybe the whole world) that had managed to earn his respect.

Then, like a second puberty, things got weird. 'Crawford' turned a very mercurial sound. It was a whine in one moment and a husky whisper the next, an outraged yell one second and a mockery-laced sneer afterwards. 'Crawford' was a short, serious warning, incredulous laughter, a fearful, quiet sigh, and a wistful moan.

However, important things had the tendency to happen all at once, inconsiderate as they were, and it was in Japan, while they were planning and plotting against Eszett, Rosenkreuz and Kritiker, that the sexual tension between them had become unbearable.

'Crawford' had acquired some stability as a word, after that. Lately, Schuldig would say it and mean familiarity. 'Crawford' was trust. Fondness, even. That didn't change the fact that Schuldig could still whine the name, whisper it with urgency or freeze Tokyo with the coldness in it. But there was an undertone to it, a nuance, something that gave away all the experience, all the knowledge, all the past.

For Schuldig, 'Crawford' implied an intimacy that 'Brad' never could. For that reason, he never used the first name to call after his leader. He always called him Crawford. Even after so many years sharing the job, the bed, the life.

"Crawford."

The Oracle finally sighed and gave in.

"What is it, Schuldig?"

The Mastermind smirked.

"Nothing. I just wanted to say it aloud."

"Three times?"

"Yes," the smirk widened into a grin, "or more."

The Oracle shook his head while the telepath's expression turned slightly dreamy.

"…Crawford."


	27. Worth

_**Worth**_

Crawford sighed and gently grabbed Schuldig's orange hair, not imposing a new rhythm to the bobbing head (Schuldig could find the right cadence himself just fine, thank you vey much), but as some kind of encouragement. And maybe, as a little act of dominance, too. The control freak couldn't just enjoy the blowjob, nooooo... he had to be an asshole.

The Oracle seldom closed his eyes during sex. Schuldig had contradictory sentiments about it: on one hand it unnerved him, but at the same time, it turned him on. Those cool, calculating eyes always on him… It was for that reason that Crawford spotted the telepath's smirk around his cock in the exact moment it made its appearance, but no vision warned him before the door opened and Nagi entered the room.

"Did you…?" he was cut mid-sentence by the scene before him. Crawford in his armchair, fly open and hands buried in orange hair, and Schuldig, kneeling between his leader's legs, on the floor, Crawford's cock most obviously in his mouth. "Oh, my God… Schuldig, you're a sick bastard!!"

With that, he turned on his heel and slammed the door behind him violently. The shock and disgust on the kid's face had been short-lived but totally worth it. At Crawford's suspecting gaze, Schuldig clarified.

"I sent him a telepathic telex about you wanting him to present himself in your office. Now."

Crawford knew he shouldn't, it would only encourage the redhead's misbehaviour, but he couldn't help it. He actually laughed. Yep, Schuldig concluded before resuming what he was doing before, definitely worth it.


	28. Childhood

_**Childhood**_

If Schwarz was asked about how their childhoods were…

Schuldig would smirk and say "short".

Nagi would try to remain inexpressive and politely state that he would rather not talk about it.

Crawford would reply that childhood was the past. He was a precognitive and his concern was the future.

Farfarello's only eye would glint as he explained that his childhood was perfectly happy and satisfactory until God came and fucked it up.


	29. Visions

_**Visions**_

The day he 'saw' the death of his parents, he didn't even miss a beat. It was the natural law. Only the strongest survived and, although he always knew himself to be one of the strongest, he acknowledged his progenitors as anything but.

When he 'saw' himself as the leader of Rosenkreuz's mightiest field-team, he accepted the fact apathetically, being the only logical outcome for a talent like his.

Then, he 'saw' Schwarz betraying Eszett and surviving it. Just another triumph for those who had been born to be the winners.

But the day came when he 'saw' himself fucking his red-haired telepath seven ways into the next week and whispering words that sounded suspiciously like "I love you", and he nearly had a stroke.

It was even worse when Schuldig, curious as a nosy cat, took advantage of his weakened mental state and broke his shields to read that particular piece of information.

The damned telepath wouldn't stop laughing for three fucking days.


	30. Denial

_**Denial**_

Crawford hated last-minute visions.

"Schuldig!!" he shouted as he lunged, taking the telepath down barely in time to duck the perfectly aimed bullet. The momentum made them roll, once they landed violently on the hard floor, gripping each other tight.

A gurgled attempt at screaming told them that Farfarello had taken the problem in hand. And killed it.

It took them a while to stop panting, both were still high on adrenaline and relief. Crawford recovered first.

"Schuldig, please, stop hugging me."

"What?" The redhead's voice was high-pitched when he felt offended. "I'm not hugging you. Man, _you_ stop hugging me."

"I'm not hugging you, either." Crawford's voice, in contrast, was as cool and calm as always. His eyes were, too.

"Oh, yeah? If I'm not hugging you and you're not hugging me, how come we're hugging?"

"I said I wasn't hugging you."

"And I said I wasn't either."

"Then we agree, we're not hugging."

"You can bet we aren't!"

"Fine."

"Fine."

"_Fine._"

"_FINE!_"

-------------

Farfarello had told him he needn't, but, contrary to popular belief, Nagi was easily worried and had to check if his teammates were ok. Unfortunately, he was quite impressionable, too.

"Oh my God!!" he almost shrieked when he finally found them.

Crawford and Schuldig stopped and looked, a little bit wide-eyed, at the shocked telekinetic. Then, they simultaneously exclaimed:

"We are not kissing!"


	31. Clairvoyance

_**Clairvoyance**_

"Crawford, why wouldn't you let me drink alcohol?"

Nagi was making a real effort trying not to sound whiny. The Oracle didn't stop typing as he delivered his reply.

"Because I've foreseen what would happen if I did."

The youth refrained from pouting and a bit more indignantly, he asked:

"Then, how come you let Schuldig get smashed as much as he wanted?"

Crawford made a tiny pause and sighed. He, then, resumed his typing.

"Because I've foreseen what would happen if I didn't."


	32. Subtlety II

_**Subtlety II**_

Schuldig had one rule he always strive on not to break: he never tried to mentally control his teammates. That left only manipulating and begging when he wanted something from them.

The redhead knew that, inside that inexpressive shell of his, Nagi was a softie, so he usually went for the 'nicely asking' approach with him.

/Pretty please?/ he telepathically pouted.

/Schuldig, we're _indoors_. Don't you think Crawford will suspect a tiny little bit?/ Nagi reasoned, gaze directed intently forwards, averted from the telepath.

Schuldig allowed himself to pout outwardly, too, knowing the gesture would be lost to the world; everyone's looks were fixed on Takatori – that pig had been rambling for an hour, already – and, as a group, when someone took an interest in Schwarz, it was usually Crawford and his damned charisma that attracted all the attention. People tended to think he was the less scary. Schuldig snorted. Idiots.

/Come on, Nagi/ the telepath insisted, /the windows are open. It's perfectly plausible!/

/No, it's not/ the youth retorted, /and I'm not being admonished just because you're a sick bastard with stupidly ridiculous kinks./

Schuldig frowned, but didn't betray himself glaring at Nagi. He kept his place beside Crawford, a little behind him, looking at his front.

/It's not a kink/ he argued, /I'm doing him a favour. Really, I only look after Schwarz's best interests…/

/Yeah, of course, Schuldig the altruist./

/…and, anyway, you could be subtle. Nobody has to notice. First a little draft here, then a soft breeze there and… voilà!/

/No, Schuldig… and stop talking, we're going to be caught./

/And if I pay you?/

Nagi projected a telepathic snort, but Schuldig insisted. Manipulating, begging… and bribing.

/I won't read your mind for a week./

/A month, and you wait until we're out./

/A month, and you do it here. A week and you do it outside./

/Deal./

Schuldig grinned. Then, incidentally, he caught the thoughts of the second guy on Takatori's left and scowled. The bastard was wondering if Schuldig was a loonie, changing expressions so quickly when nothing interesting was being said. The telepath wiped the impressions of himself out of the guy's memory and checked the rest of those present. It was his job, after all.

When the meeting ended, three interminable hours later, Schuldig nudged the brat and reminded him of their pact. Nagi rolled his eyes and sighed.

But then, as soon as they put foot on the street, a gust of wind blew and disheveled Crawford's hair, freeing the longer bangs from the hold of the gel and allowing them to fall gracefully down his brow.

The Oracle raked annoyed a hand through his hair, trying to push the bangs out of his face, but the damage was done and they went back to the front again.

Schuldig wetted his lips with the briefest touch of his tongue and smirked.

Nagi shook his head in disbelief, but said nothing.


	33. Size

_**Size**_

Crawford was talking big again. That irked the telepath because it made him suspect that Crawford thought Schuldig was stupid. And Schuldig wasn't.

"Don't try to impress me with four-syllabled words, Crawford." The redhead sneered, "I'm German. Our ass-long words beat yours anytime."

Crawford didn't look particularly happy.

"So, for you, it's all about size."

"So it seems," drawled the telepath. "After all, size matters, you know…"

"Hn."


	34. Subtlety III

_**Subtlety III**_

Schuldig eyed the little, rectangular-shaped device with disdain.

"Nagi, I'm a fucking telepath. What should I need an ugly cell phone for?"

The youth smiled wanly.

"Well, you can't make international calls with your mind and charge them to Crawford's account, can you?"

Schuldig's wide mouth stretched in a devilish grin at the possibilities.

"Oh, Nagi," he said proudly while grabbing the previously hated gadget, "maybe there's still hope for you, after all…"

Knowing how much Nagi disliked it, he then ruffled the kid's hair, before walking happily out with his new toy.

* * *

"Mission accomplished, sir."

"Good. Everything went as planned, I presume."

"Yes, Crawford," Nagi confirmed, "but… how did you know he would take the bait without trying to read my mind?"

It wasn't as if the Oracle was able to predict thoughts…

Crawford just smirked in reply. Nagi wondered if they realized how freaking similar they both were.

Well, he thought, at least Crawford didn't ruffle his hair.


	35. Sodomy

_**Sodomy**_

Nagi was young and inexperienced. That was what Schuldig told himself to not kill him on the spot when one day, reading the brat's mind, he found strong prejudices against the activities Crawford and Schuldig indulged in in their free time.

"Ok, Nagi," Schuldig said patiently, unaccustomed to doing so. "So, exactly, what the fuck is wrong about having sex with another man?"

"It's… unnatural." Nagi didn't look too convinced. "It's against the law of God."

That was it.

"Only Farfarello (who is nuts, by the way) believes in God." Schuldig's voice was dangerously low and sarcastic. "And anyway, if God hadn't wanted men to be homosexual, he wouldn't have invented the prostate."


	36. Models

_**Models**_

_(Dedicated to eMu3, because it was a comment from her that inspired this)_

Nagi usually confided in Farfarello, because while he was insane, he at least pretended to listen.

"I don't understand it. First, I did my best to infuriate her, then I groped her, but when I tried to kiss her not only did she not kiss me back, but she also slapped me! What did I do wrong?"

Farfarello eyed him clinically.

"You should watch more TV and less Schuldig-Crawford interaction."


	37. At Night

_**At Night**_

Schuldig-watching wasn't one of Crawford's habits. The telepath was flashy enough to be noticed, regardless of whether one wanted to see him or not. So Crawford didn't consider it necessary to look at him in his free time. It wasn't a common occurrence, then, that the Oracle found himself staring at a sound asleep Mastermind at 2 am.

Schuldig always enjoyed the sleep of the just, which, in Crawford's opinion, was another irony of life.

It was weird enough to be watching Schuldig sleeping naked by his side. In Crawford's bed. Even weirder was the silly compulsion to touch that orange hair. That at least, Crawford would refrain from doing. But it was still odd to feel the urge.

Puzzled, head propped on his hand, Crawford tried to sort himself out without interrupting his watching.

"It's fuck o'clock in the morning... Brad, man, for God's sake, don't think so loud..."

Schuldig's whining was slurred by sleep, but the words were still totally recognizable. Just like their meaning. The hot and nasty tendrils of alarm tried to take hold of Crawford's brain.

"You can't read me."

The hidden question mark made Schuldig's lips curve in delight. He didn't need to read Crawford to know what the bastard was thinking. Or, at least, to notice he was doing it. He knew him too well.

Orange eyelashes slit lazily open a fraction, just for Schuldig's eyes to glimmer evilly at Crawford, perfectly matching his wicked smile.

"Gotcha."

As imperceptibly as he had tensed, Crawford relaxed. It had been a bluff, then.

"Mm."

Crawford lay down again and turned his back on the telepath.

Even weirder than having been staring at him and wanting to touch him was the feeling of contentment that invaded Crawford when Schuldig unceremoniously slung an arm around his waist and tangled a leg between his before falling asleep again. With regular breathing caressing the skin of his nape, Crawford followed him.


	38. Counselor

_**Counselor**_

"...And this is more or less the fucking problem."

Schuldig wasn't in a good mood. That was pretty obvious to Yohji. The telepath struck the nearest wall with his fist and Yohji repressed a flinch at the gratuitous violence, unable to do much more, efficiently tied down to the chair as he was.

"So, if I've understood correctly," the white hunter started, after nervously clearing his throat, "he doesn't give in because he's afraid that once you've gotten – and I quote your words here – his 'icy ass' and taken down his barriers, you'll lose interest and stop wanting him, since you're only in love wi--"

"In lust," Schuldig sternly corrected.

"--In whatever with the damned challenge and not with him, right?"

Schuldig nodded.

Yohji sighed and wriggled a bit, trying to alleviate the tension that the forced position loaded his shoulders with.

"And you don't give in because you're afraid that he'll discover that, behind all your willfulness and defiance there's just a person, and once he thinks he's tamed you, he won't want your ass anymore, since he's in lo--I mean, in whatever--with the conquering and domineering and not with you. Am I right?"

Schuldig was frowning.

"More or less. You sound a bit more like me and a bit less like yourself... am I projecting again?"

Yohji ignored him and spoke on.

"So you've decided to kidnap me and tie me to a fucking chair only to ask me what you should do about your and Crawford's blue balls..."

"Okay, now I'm sure. I'm projecting."

Maybe Schuldig was right, because he was feeling less scared and more furious by the second. Yohji didn't let that knowledge deter him. If anything, the bits of Schuldig's personality that he was receiving only made him bolder.

"Did you want my advice? I'll give you my advice: You and Crawford, get a damned room and get over it already. You're not five, for God's sake. If after that, you're still in _whatever_--"

"I don't like your ironic tone there, Balinese."

"--then it's fine, you've won the jackpot and achieved your eternal, true _whatever_. If not, it's fine, too, since you've gotten it out of your systems and can continue with your plans of world domination. So, now that the problem is solved and I've enlightened your marital life, could you please untie me and let me go?"

With narrowed eyes, Schuldig pondered what to do next. Overlooking Yohji's insolence (it was his own, after all), he decided to let the kitten live. He liked Yohji far better than half his patrons, after all.

"Nah," the telepath refused as he walked towards the exit, "an assassin whose weapon of choice is a long wire is not worth his salt if he cannot undo some easy knots."

Finally reaching the door, Schuldig turned to smirk at him one last time.

"See you around, Balinese."

Walking away, Schuldig's grin got wider as he heard Yohji desperately butcher his name with his horrible Japanese accent.

Yes, Yohji was far more amusing alive.


	39. Religion

_**Religion**_

Farfarello believed in his crusade against God.

Crawford believed in his own power.

Nagi didn't actually believe in anything.

Schuldig believed in Crawford.


	40. True Love

_**True Love**_

Crawford didn't like television very much. He sometimes watched the News, but he wasn't especially interested in the entertainment programs. However, he had had a very hard week and he wanted to experiment for once how one felt when one was knowingly wasting time. That was the closest he could come to defining "relaxing". Or at least that was Schuldig's conclusion when the Oracle sat with him in front of the TV set and didn't get up immediately after. Even though the movie Schuldig was watching was utter shit, even by the telepath's standards.

The film was a romantic tragedy. The handsome boy was dying and telling the pretty girl how he wanted her to be happy, to find a new love and to forget about him and what they had had. Schuldig scowled.

The dialogue continued, but for Schuldig it was just a background noise; those cheesy lines had triggered a new thought in his always-busy head.

"Hey," he called, averting his eyes from the screen and fixing them on the man at his side, "just in case I don't have those precious minutes every Hollywood star gets before kicking the bucket, I want to leave something totally clear now."

Crawford looked at him with the same utterly uninterested expression he had been directing to the film.

"If I die," Schuldig continued, undisturbed, "I want you to mourn me forever, to be horribly unhappy and to cry not a river, but a fucking ocean for me." He put a knee on the couch they were sharing to prop himself up and get closer to Crawford, becoming literally face to face with him. "If I die, I want you to remember me every day of your life and to wish I was there. I want you to turn your head every time you see a wisp of orange, and to look in the crowd for the ghost of a green coat you thought you had seen. I want you to remember my mouth, the way I kissed and the way I bit, the way I sucked your cock. I want you to miss my wit, my bawdy jokes that never connected with your more refined sense of humor, the comments I made that you never completely understood, and the ones you did, because sometimes you were the only one able to know what the fuck I was talking about. I want you to miss my hands, my fingers when I pulled the trigger and when I undid your pants. My nipples, 'cause they're damn right beautiful and you know it. My navel. My ass. My dick. I want you to compare every woman and every man you meet, you talk to or you fuck with me, and I want you to find them all lacking. I want you to be miserable. I want you to drink, to smoke, to take drugs, to fuck strangers and to be fucked by them and still be unable to forget me. And when the pain is just too unbearable, I wish that the agony of missing me so fucking much makes you careless, that you finally make a mistake and get shot down. And when you're bleeding to death and your heart beats slower and slower, when you see only darkness and can't bring more air to your lungs, when everything hurts and then stops hurting, I want your last thought to be of me. Because _that_," he ranted on, pointing at the screen where the pretty girl was crying pitifully over her dead boyfriend, "that is bullshit."

Crawford's face didn't reveal anything, his expression unaltered from the start to the end of Schuldig's heated speech.

"And this?" He finally asked, calm and composed, after giving Schuldig some time to adjust.

"Huh?"

"_That_," Crawford mimicked Schuldig's gesture towards the TV set, "is bullshit, you say. So I'm asking you what your words are all about."

It took Schuldig a while to get down to Earth and understand what Crawford was implying. The slight curving of the Oracle's lips told him that the bastard already knew. Schuldig scowled again. After a long silence, he finally answered.

"Fuck you, Crawford."

* * *

A/N: I'd like to thank eMu3 for beta-reading these last five chapters and bookofnicodemus for beta-reading the rest.


	41. Subtlety IV

_**Subtlety IV**_

Schuldig eyed the garlic-seasoned salad in front of Crawford with suspicion.

"I don't need to be a tight-assed precog to predict that, if you eat that aberration, you're not getting any tonight."

Crawford daringly brought the first bite to his mouth.

"You aren't, either," he declared without flourish.

An orange eyebrow rose.

"We'll see," the telepath replied, making it a promise, eyes slightly narrowed.

---------

"Mission completed," the dispassionate voice of the Prodigy stated through their telepathic link.

--------

Later, when Nagi turned in his report, he couldn't help asking.

"Crawford..."

The Oracle raised his gaze from the documents and looked at him to prompt him. With time, Nagi had gotten used to his leader's natural resilience to pose questions.

"How... how did you convince Schuldig to sleep with the target?"

Schuldig could be the biggest slut in Tokyo, but he refused to be pimped around.

Crawford smirked and said nothing.


	42. Weiß I

_**Weiß**_

"Can someone tell me who established the combat pairings when we fight against Schwarz? No, really, I mean... I have to fight against the fastest of them and it's not exactly easy to get my wire around the neck of someone who moves like he's got a hive of wasps up his ass, not to mention his telepathy. Isn't it more logical that Aya takes care of him, since he's so adept at keeping his mind blank? And Farfarello, he's not only nuts, he's... what do they call him? Yes, a damned BERSERKER. Wouldn't it be safer if Omi hit him with some darts like they do at the zoo with rabid animals? Not to mention Nagi... Who the fuck decided that the only one of us that uses a ranged weapon should invest his time and energy throwing things at a _telekinetic_? For God's sake, why don't we rearrange things to our advantage?"

"Ok, since you seem to have studied the case so thoroughly, please, enlighten us, who would you like to fight against the next time?"

"..."

"..."

"Alright, I get your point."


	43. Weiß II

_**Weiß II**_

"And by the way, who suggested we use bladed weapons against villains with superpowers _and_ firearms? Shouldn't we be granted access to, I don't know, bazookas or something?"

"Yohji, just... shut up."


	44. Intimacy

_**Intimacy**_

Farfarello knew from the very first time. Schuldig couldn't understand how, since Farfarello's cell was soundproofed, and their attitude towards one another hadn't changed in the slightest. Now that he thought about it, it had also barely changed in the privacy of Crawford's bedroom – his bedroom, because Crawford wouldn't step into what he had called 'your pigsty'.

No, their relationship was the same as ever. Crawford bossed him around, Schuldig acted as if it was what he wanted and not because Crawford had told him that he followed orders and, if some night the moon caught them at 2 a.m. fucking like there was no tomorrow, well… no one had to know.

Except Farfarello, who couldn't wait to mock the telepath with his twisted and cryptic puns. And now, Schuldig deemed it time Nagi learned about it, too.

If he went directly to him and spat: 'Hi, Nagi. How was school? I'm fucking Crawford,' the kid wouldn't believe him, so he started to think about how to break the news to him.

In the end, it was pure chance. All of his teammates were in the living-room when Schuldig arrived home. That was rare, since Schwarz worked stunningly well as a group, but consisted of antisocial individuals who seldom did anything together aside from killing. Pocketing his keys, Schuldig observed the scene.

Crawford was reading the paper at the table. Nagi sat opposite him with a textbook open and the elbows on the table. Farfarello was on the couch, watching TV. Leaning as he was over the newspaper, Crawford's glasses had slipped a little down the bridge of his nose.

Schuldig smirked.

Moving slowly, deliberately, the telepath approached his leader and, bracing his hand on the back of Crawford's chair, started to read over his shoulder, face to face, cheeks nearly touching.

Crawford didn't react, but when Schuldig lifted his eyes from the article he had been directing his gaze at, he saw he had caught Nagi's attention.

Smirking openly at the kid, Schuldig's eyes fell on Crawford's face. Then, with the strangest sort of tenderness Nagi had ever seen the callous telepath display, Schuldig delicately pushed Crawford's glasses back up his nose.

For all that the precog reacted, it seemed as if he hadn't even noticed. Which was the strangest thing of all, considering that, in Nagi's experience, the Oracle knew it all and didn't let disrespect slide. When he finally made the connection, Nagi's eyes widened comically and trying to keep his cool, he excused himself and fled to his bedroom. Schuldig grinned.

"You owe me."

Crawford's voice had been low, his eyes still fixed on the paper. Schuldig had to repress the sudden urge to eat at his mouth.

"That I do," he whispered instead, wondering briefly how come the Oracle had chosen to indulge him and play along, but too busy watching the glasses slide back down Crawford's nose to question his luck.

"Hn."

Schuldig forced himself to leave the room before he could push the glasses back in place again and had to explain why he would do it when nobody was looking anymore.


	45. Vulnerability

_**Vulnerability**_

"Aaah...!"

"Hn!"

The quiet moans and pants were the only sounds in the elegant bedroom, apart from the steady slap of flesh against flesh. The bed didn't creak and wouldn't hit the wall, no matter how hard they fucked on it.

"Ah!"

After some frantic thrusts, Crawford came and Schuldig followed soon after. Barely two minutes past that, the telepath rose and started looking for his pants.

It was always like that. After catching his breath, not long enough to truly enjoy the afterglow, Schuldig always went back to his own room.

"Why do you always leave right after we're done?"

Crawford's voice was flat when asking, not making it a question at all. It wasn't the kind of inquiry Schuldig would have expected from him in any case, and that solely was reason enough for the telepath to reply.

"I'd rather die than give anyone a chance to kick me out of their beds."

He said it smirking, half joking, like every time he talked about himself.

Pants done, Schuldig picked up his shirt and started to pull it on when Crawford's voice stopped him in mid-gesture.

"I won't."

Slowly, very slowly, Schuldig let his arms down and turned to look at Crawford. After sex, the Oracle never seemed the same person. Hair disheveled, flushed skin, myopic eyes trying to bring the Mastermind into focus... his expression was as cold and serious as ever, though, totally at odds with his "freshly-fucked" look and with what the words he had just uttered implied.

Step by step, Schuldig walked cautiously back to the bed. Without breaking eye contact, he gingerly bent down and, bracing his hand on the mattress, gently kissed Crawford on the mouth. He didn't linger, neither did he try to take the kiss further. He then withdrew as slowly as he had approached and straightened up. He looked at Crawford for a moment and his eyes softened, a half-smile fighting to reach his lips.

"No," he softly admitted, "maybe today you wouldn't."

After that, he gathered the clothes he hadn't put on yet, and exited the room without looking back.


	46. Trust

_**Trust**_

Yohji waited patiently for the redhead to stop laughing.

"I don't think I've really heard you right," Schuldig said with mirth still dying his voice when the guffaws finally subsided, "you want me to change sides and join the good guys? Are you serious?"

Yohji didn't reply. He hated being always the one forced to deal with the telepath. Even Farfarello would have been better.

"And what, pray tell, has Weiß to offer to a man like me?"

Before Yohji could recite his rehearsed speech, Schuldig helped himself to the answer.

"Protection? You, who can't find your asses on a good day, are offering me protection? From Schwarz? Ha, ha, ha...!!"

The laughter was louder this time. Hysterical, even. Yohji was starting to hate the world.

"Kudoh," still chuckling, Schuldig passed amiably his arm around the white hunter's shoulders, "let's suppose Kritiker could afford me. They can't, but let's just pretend for a while. If I betrayed my team, what makes you think I wouldn't betray Weiß next?" Schuldig made a little pause, but started speaking again before Yohji could reply. "Would you trust a traitor? Would you trust _me_?"

With as much elegance as he could muster, Yohji shook off Schuldig's arm from his shoulders.

"You're already you, Schuldig. Nobody trusts you."

"Crawford does."

That made the white hunter pause. He hadn't expected that. Still, Yohji had learned the hard way to be skeptical.

"How would you know?"

Schuldig smirked.

"'Cause I trust him back. Try to beat that, honey."

"Schuldig..."

The German had already started to walk away, but he stopped and turned towards Yohji once more.

"I've been in your mind. You follow Persia because you fear the consequences of not doing it. I follow Crawford 'cause I want to. Think about it, Kudoh."

And with a last wink, he started walking again, leaving Yohji behind.


	47. Projection I

_**Projection**_

It was normally after sex that Schuldig got most communicative and playful. Crawford assumed that endorphins caused him to open up. For once, Crawford was wrong. Sly bastard that he was, Schuldig just took advantage of Crawford's post-coital bliss to get away with things he normally wouldn't be allowed to.

"These aren't high on the diopter scale... the world looks disappointingly normal with these on. I expected a hypnotizing trip to the Land of Distorted Proportions."

Schuldig's pensive tone while he tried on Crawford's gigantic glasses was too incongruent to not be amusing, rather than annoying.

"Schuldig, take them off."

"How do I look in them?"

The telepath, still flushed and sweaty, orange hair everywhere, batted his eyelashes behind the lenses.

"Hideous."

Far from being offended, Schuldig smirked.

"Don't think they become you any better..."

"I don't wear them for their aesthetic value."

The fact that Crawford was so proper in his speech even after a good session of Schuldig's loving had bothered the redhead at first. He liked to consider himself mind-blowing in bed, but Crawford's mind never seemed particularly blown after he was done with it. With time, he had started to find it endearing instead of insulting. Especially since he had noticed that the changes in the Oracle after sex were subtle, but were definitely there, as the simple fact of having this conversation proved.

"They don't need to be butt-ugly, though. Why not switch to contact lenses?"

Still making no effort to retrieve his glasses from Schuldig's face, Crawford nearly smiled.

"That would defeat the purpose."

The short pause in both actions and words let Crawford know that Schuldig was starting to make connections.

"You don't need them," the telepath whispered, "the lenses aren't graduated."

Crawford raised his arms and intertwined his fingers to cradle his head in an unaccustomed smug gesture.

"What does your appearance say about you, Schuldig?"

Tacky, ruthless, bold, wild. Look at me. Remember me. Don't trust me.

And in spite of that, they both knew about the telepath's discipline, about his knack for stealth, about his loyalty.

"It's not what we are, Schuldig. It's what we project."

Watching the glimmer in Crawford's eyes, it suddenly sunk in how well the glasses hid the fact that the ruthless and wild one of them both, definitely wasn't Schuldig.


	48. Projection II

_**Projection II**_

"Hey, Crawford - with the choice of cream suit, green tie, brown waistcoat and lilac shirt, what exactly are you trying to project?"


	49. Wants II

_**Wants II**_

Nagi wasn't a social creature. His short experience with society had led him to believe it sucked. The rest of Schwarz generally agreed with that, so he wasn't especially encouraged to interact or spend time in the common zones of their huge apartment. In spite of that, Schuldig didn't ask him why he was out of his room for more than a piss, or what he was doing in the living-room when it was obviously occupied. Mainly, because he was too engrossed in the cheap soap opera he liked to watch in the afternoons.

The telepath didn't even look at him when Nagi took a seat in the armchair near the couch Schuldig was lying on, eyes fixed on the screen.

That was quite the mystery to Nagi, Schuldig's passion for TV series, no matter how cheesy they were. He would have thought that real life would be much more interesting to a telepath, who could tune into any mind in the vicinity.

"I can't know what they'll say next."

It took Nagi a while to catch the meaning. He wasn't aware he had been projecting, so he hadn't expected Schuldig to reply to his unasked question.

"You can't read the mind of a TV character, you mean."

Schuldig waited for the woman on the screen to stop talking and the suspense music to start flowing before answering.

"I don't know if she's telling the truth, or if her secret son hasn't died and now knows who his father is, yes."

"But I thought you liked knowing everything..."

It was then that Schuldig finally looked at him. His smirk looked as natural as ever, if a little bitter.

"Everyone wants what they cannot have, kid. You'd like to be normal, but if you were normal you'd like to be special. That's the way it is."

Nagi fell silent, thinking about the piece of philosophy he had just been offered, by the most unexpected source.

It wasn't until much later, that Nagi would suddenly understand why Schuldig coveted Crawford so much.


	50. Glühen

_**Glühen**_

After so much time working together, Crawford knew that Schuldig's defenses were at their lowest in the moments right after waking up from sleep. In turn, Schuldig was well aware that Crawford's defenses were at their lowest after especially difficult missions had gone well.

For that reason, it was after the last battle against Rosenkreuz's team, once they had left Nagi with the Weiß brat (who, in Schuldig's not so humble opinion, didn't deserve him in the least) that the telepath made his move.

Instead of the scorching, passionate, fuck-tastic kiss he had planned on, Schuldig surprised even himself when his lips grazed Crawford's mouth tenderly. Later, he would state it had been out of consideration for the precog's pitiful condition - bits of brain leaking from his ears and all after his psychic fight against Berger - that he had held back. But at that moment, when Crawford calmly asked him what he thought he was doing (calmly, if only because he didn't have any adrenaline left to be insulted by anything anymore), the telepath just murmured: "Fuck if I know."

Head braced against the head-rest on the passenger's seat, watching the burning school through the windscreen, Crawford smirked. Schuldig hadn't started the car, yet, his eyes fixed on the fire before them. The telepath didn't move when Crawford spoke again.

"I knew you couldn't be straight after seeing what you chose to wear to this battle..."

"...says the guy with the monocle."

The silence that followed that last exchange was easy, relaxed. Familiarity didn't breed just contempt, it seemed.

"Take me home."

The moment the words were uttered, Schuldig's gaze flew from the building in flames to the man at his side, but Crawford's eyes were as closed as his expression and neither him, not Schuldig were up to a telepathic connection right now.

However, knowing his leader as he did, Schuldig was more than sure, more than positive that neither the wording not the connotations of the request had been casual. Crawford was a man who scheduled when he took a piss.

Too tired to let himself obsess about the possible implications of Crawford's words, Schuldig concluded that he could find out later. They had the time.

Choosing not to reply, Schuldig smirked and started the engine.


	51. Size II

**Size II**

"Crawford said that I shouldn't trust you. That if you're given an inch, you'll take a mile."

Schuldig narrowed his eyes at the indirect insult, annoyed that the Oracle's meddling would hinder his plans.

"I suppose he stated that he was talking from experience..." he coldly answered Nagi.

The kid didn't offer a reply.

"Well," Schuldig airly said, "ask Crawford, on my behalf, what use I could possibly have for that miserable inch of his."

Nagi paused before finally asking, "How is it that everything you say about Crawford ends up sounding like sex?"

"Probably because that's what I'm talking about."


	52. Razor's Edge

**Razor's Edge**

An angry Schuldig was a thing of beauty. Maybe that was why Crawford liked to push him so hard-and just as often as the telepath cared to return the favor. Somehow, they both got off on running on the razor's edge. All the more if they did it together or against one another.

Ducking a punch fast enough to have hit him if his precognition hadn't hinted about it in time, Crawford charged and shoved the other man against the wall, not minding the violence of the impact, much less the disgruntled groan Schuldig let out. Quickly, efficiently, Crawford caught Schuldig's wrists and pinned him in place, using all their difference in weight to overpower him, blocking the space between their bodies to abort any possible attempt at kicking. That proved to be sort of revealing. Maybe they got off on it more literally than they had previously thought.

When the words came, they were more breath than sound.

"If I kiss you now, will you bite my tongue off?"

Schuldig didn't reply immediately. He just narrowed his eyes and panted, tense as a rubber band about to snap.

"...Yes."

Crawford did it anyway.

The kiss was furious, hungry, intense, a mirror of their relationship. Their bodies pressed together and moved for friction, for contact, for pleasure, for reassurance, who knew what for... tongues invaded and claimed, but when the kiss finally ended, both of them returned home unscathed.

Still pinned against the wall, Schuldig rest his forehead against Crawford's and tried to calm his laboured breathing. The apparent intimacy and trust of the gesture didn't surprise Crawford anymore; the telepath was weird like that. He didn't even notice how weird he himself was at allowing the contact, at being pleased by it. None of them ever talked about what they had.

"You 'saw' that I wouldn't bite you," Schuldig finally accused.

Closing his eyes, since the distance between them was too short to focus his sight, Crawford sighed.

"No, I didn't."

"Then, why did you risk it?"

It wasn't as if Schuldig wasn't really able to bite his leader's tongue off. He wasn't the one to always ponder consequences and take sensible decisions.

"Because I made you think that I knew you wouldn't."

Far from getting angry, Schuldig smirked and let his body relax. Crawford didn't need to know everything, just make people think that he did.

"You, son of a bitch..." Schuldig said without anger, nearly with admiration, before tilting his head and kissing Crawford again.


	53. Weiß III

**Weiß III**

(Inspired by ep.22 of the WK anime)

"So, let's see if I've understood correctly, Yohji," Aya started very slowly and very low, as if to ascertain that he wasn't leaving a place to misunderstand, "you could have taken down both one member of Schwarz and one of Schreient but you didn't because..."

"They were kissing."

"...Because they were kissing."

Yohji didn't reply immediately. Some things were too obvious to explain.

"Well, yeah. I mean, they were _kissing_!"

"Yes, I'd say I've sort of gotten the concept. What I don't get is why you let them go."

"Hey, man, I don't have a problem with being a killer and going to Hell and all that stuff, but seriously, you can't expect me to go and kill some lovey-dovey teenagers in the middle of them making out..."

"So it's some kind of safe place for you. That is, if it had been Crawford and Schuldig you were facing and suddenly they started kissing you couldn't go and kill them, that's what you're saying..."

"What? No! I mean, Crawford and... what? Arrghhh!"

"Yohji, you should have killed them."

"What's the big deal! They ended up dead anyway!"

"No, they didn't."

"But we thought they did! And it's not _my_ fault that _nobody_ cared enough to check!"

"Are you trying to put the blame on _me_?"

"Well, I wasn't the one spouting poetry about how 'love makes you suffer' and all that..."

"You didn't exactly disagree."

"Because love makes you suffer! That's the reason I couldn't kill them!" 

"So that they could angst later?"

"No, you damned dickhead! Because I've been there, too! And because they were fucking kissing!"

"Were they fucking or were they kissing? Make your damned mind, Yohji!"

"You're a fucking bastard, I hope you realize."

"And I hope you realize that you should have killed them."

"But they were kissing!"

"..."

"..."

"..."

"Don't look at me like that! They were kissing!"


	54. War

**War**

For some reason, Schuldig's questions always came in the worst moments. Normally, when Crawford was trying to concentrate on something important. The Oracle's guess was that the telepath spent a considerable amount of effort in planning the right time to let them out.

"Hey, Crawford, I'm curious... can you see your own future?"

Not letting his annoyance show, Crawford distractedly replied, "What about you, Schuldig... can you lie to yourself?"

Before the dazing effect of the empty witticism could wear off, Crawford stood up and left the room.

When Schuldig finally came up with the right comeback, he was alone. He grinned. Contrary to popular belief, he didn't mind losing a battle or two if the enemy was worthy. And there wasn't a more formidable opponent than Brad Crawford. Leaning back, he started to plan his next move in this silly war of theirs.


	55. Happy Ending

**Happy Ending**

(Written for two_point, following her free prompt)

"So, what now?"

Because, in Schuldig's experience, sex complicated things. In fact, he wasn't totally sure about his reasons to agree to fuck up the best professional relationship he had ever had.

"Now," Crawford answered, taking an unusually long drag of his post-coital cigarette. It was the first time Schuldig saw him enjoying the habit instead of just being efficient about it, "we conquer the world."

It took Schuldig a while to reply to that.

"Ah." The last time he had felt this bewildered he had not yet reached the age of five. "Good to know. That easy, eh?"

Crawford reached out to put out his cigarette in the bedside ashtray. Schuldig had observed that he never smoked them to the stub, always wasting nearly half of the stick.

"Yes," Crawford answered, looking at him with a smirk on his lips, "that easy."

For the life of him, Schuldig couldn't tell what did he found so hilarious about it, but anyway, he started to laugh.


	56. Riddles

_**Riddles**_

It was something that puzzled Schuldig. Because Crawford was notoriously discreet with his body, always hiding it behind ugly shirts and expensive suits, even in their slow time inside the flat in the summer, when even Nagi would wear shorts and Schuldig wouldn't bother with a shirt. However, every morning, Crawford would go into the bathroom in his dark pajamas and come out of it in nothing but a towel. Not even the vapor of the hot water would cling to him. And Schuldig, being Schuldig and hating mornings, would wake up at the break of dawn to be the silent witness to a nearly naked Crawford who would haunt the corridor for barely three seconds. For being so reluctant to show off, Crawford didn't care about Schuldig being there, either. It wasn't as if he were shy. Crawford wasn't. And Schuldig knew. Knew but didn't understand. It was something that really puzzled Schuldig.

"I don't get you," Schuldig said one morning.

Crawford paused when reaching for the knob of his bedroom. He looked like a totally different person. Muscled. Without glasses. Wet bangs everywhere.

"Your answer is your own question," Crawford replied cryptically, enjoying his role as the Oracle a bit too much for Schuldig's taste. But seeing that foreign body smirk so familiarly was nearly worth the annoyance, Schuldig thought.

Then Crawford completed the movement and entered his room without looking back.

Schuldig was back to bed and asleep by the time Crawford was putting on his slacks. It didn't even occur to him to wonder how come Crawford hadn't acquired a flat with a private bathroom in his bedroom. That would have puzzled him even more.


	57. War II

_**War II**_

"Crawford, I've got a news flash for you: you're not as cool as you think you are."

"You aren't as hot as you think you are either, Schuldig."


	58. Defiance II

_**Defiance II**_

He heard the footsteps and recognized the softness combined with the fast pace of someone with shorter legs, but he still didn't try to turn over to face him. Everything hurt too much. Nagi didn't take that into consideration and flipped him over telekinetically. Schuldig groaned.

"Schuldig, you just never learn."

He could be battered, but not enough to stop him from smirking.

"I make a point of never learning, kiddo," he whispered, "I wouldn't like to give the impression that I can be taught."

Nagi shook his head, and went to fetch the first aid kit.


	59. Counsellor II

_**Counselor II**_

"How come I'm here again?"

"What do you mean 'again'?" Schuldig snapped. "I've never brought you here."

Yohji sighed, gathering his patience. He broodily pushed the cherry of his cocktail down, getting his finger sticky in the process.

"I didn't mean the place, I meant the situation. As in 'you've kidnapped me again'."

"What are you talking about? This is a bar, I haven't tied you down, you're here of your own free will..."

"Schuldig, you're blackmailing me. With things I haven't even done."

"Okay, okay, stop sulking. If you miss that cellar so much, I could still accomodate you. I might have a coil of rope in the car..."

Coming to the conclusion that the patience he had managed to gather wasn't that much after all, Yohji kicked Schuldig under the table.

"Hey!"

* * *

"How is it that a bunch of sociopaths can work in a team so well? I would have thought your egos would collide, trying to put them all together in an apartment smaller than them."

Schuldig signaled the waiter for another round. Yohji thought that Schuldig getting him drunk and beating around the bushes was far better than Schuldig tying him to a chair and rambling about his love life in a cellar, so he accepted the new drink amiably.

"How do you know how big our apartment is?" Schuldig asked suspiciously.

"I don't. But your ego is the size of Tokyo and Crawford's is probably the size of Japan."

Schuldig took a large gulp of his drink and shrugged.

"We don't try to be friends. We don't give a fuck about what the others do or think. Keeping a relationship strictly professional does wonders for efficiency."

"But you live with the guys. And you're fucking Crawford." Yohji protested.

"So what?"

Yohji cast him a typical 'I'm not sure of the level of intelligence of my counterpart' look.

"Don't you think that might be crossing the line between professional and personal?"

Schuldig cast exactly the same look back at him.

"No. We don't take 'fucking' as something personal."

"And how the hell can you fuck in an impersonal manner?"

Schuldig sent him a mental picture. Yohji paled, grabbed his glass and finished his drink.

"That looked pretty personal to me," he finally said when he found his voice.

"It's not personal."

"It is."

"It is not."

"It is too."

"I tell you it is not."

"It sure looked like it."

"Well, appearances are deceiving."

Yohji frowned. And he had thought before that arguing with Aya was an exercise of futility...

"Okay," he looked at his sadly empty glass and decided this was as good time as any to get to the point, "why the fuck am I here?"

Schuldig made a facial movement that made his nose twitch. Yohji had to bite his tongue not to laugh out loud. He wasn't drunk enough to provoke the other assassin, especially when Schuldig wasn't drunk enough, either, to tone down his cruel streak.

"Because I don't want it anymore."

"The sex?"

"It being impersonal."

"...Oh."

"Yeah. Oh."

They sat in awkward silence for a moment. Then, like mirror images, they both signaled the waiter for yet another round.

* * *

"You should talk to him. Tell him your feelings. Open up."

Yohji didn't slur, but he talked slower when he was drunk. Schuldig looked at him with half-hooded, red-rimmed eyes.

"Your sense of humour shhhhhhucks," he informed Yohji.

"I'm serious!"

"You can't be."

"I am!"

"Then, you'rrre an idiot. Iz that the best advice you can come up with?"

Yohji was starting to get angry.

"What did you expect me to say? That you should fry his brain till he's retarded enough to love you?"

Schuldig narrowed his eyes.

"I'm not...! That's not...!"

"Oh, sorry," Yohji interrupted him, making a big show of rolling his eyes, "I forgot you're not in love but in 'whatever'. 'Whatever' being possibly denial!"

"You..."

Schuldig never got to finish the sentence because he thought action would be more eloquent than words. Therefore, he punched Yohji.

Yohji shook his head and tried to unify what each of his eyes was seeing in a single, more or less stable image. That allowed him to locate where Schuldig was. Once he had achieved that, he punched back.

* * *

They hadn't made it to the park. Yohji had said that, after the ordeal of beating each other and getting forcibly kicked out of the bar, it would be more comfortable to lie down on grass, and not the hard pavement, but Schuldig was still bitter about Yohji preventing him from shooting the barkeeper and decided that he didn't want to take a step further. Yohji was in no condition to drag him, and it wasn't as if the streets were terribly populated in the suburbs at two in the morning, so he relented and sprawled by Schuldig's side in a timeless gesture of drunken camaraderie. If he squinted hard enough, he could make out the brightest stars, the lights of Tokyo deninitely dimmer so far from downtown.

"You could write him a love letter and have Farfarello deliver it. That would sure call his attention."

Schuldig snorted, but followed the lead.

"Or I could send him flowers..."

"I'd offer you a discount!" Yohji laughed.

Even at such a late hour and deserted street, they could still hear the sound of an engine coming near.

"Or some chocolates. Heart-shaped ones."

They both pffffed and cackled at that.

"Why don't you sing Céline Dion under his window all night long?"

The engine was killed. The door of a car opened and closed.

"I can't sing to save my life."

"All the better! No, wait! How about getting some necklaces, those which have half a heart each!"

They heard the steps on the pavement, but they both ignored them.

"He would love that. I'm tempted to do it just to see his face."

"I'll give you a picture if you need to see my face so badly."

The nearest street lamp was pretty far away and behind the figure looming over them, but it wasn't that difficult to guess who that tall man in a business suit was.

"Your Beige Prince is here to impersonally fetch you," Yohji cheerfully anounced.

Schuldig kicked him.

"Ouch!"

"Tomorrow you're going to be hung over." Crawford said in a tone between irritated and resigned.

Schuldig and Yohji burst into giggles first and outright laughter next. Crawford patiently waited for the fit to subside. It took a while.

"He's good, eh?" Yohji commented to Schuldig, too amused and too drunk to realize the situation he was in. It wasn't everyday that one could say one had literally rolled on the floor laughing his ass off.

"Don't strain your powers like that," Schuldig admonished Crawford, "you could sprain a brain cell or something."

As response, Crawford lifted him by the arm and picked him up over his shoulder.

"If you shut up now, I might be nice and let you come out to play with your friend tomorrow, too."

"Uggghhhh..."

Yohji watched from the floor as the pair walked away towards the car. Well, Crawford walked away. Schuldig just hung from his shoulder as thought it was common ocurrence for him to be there, apparently not weighing shit.

"If you do that I'll drop you. Head first."

Yohji didn't have the impression that Crawford was talking to him. He was curious, so he tried to direct his thought towards Schuldig.

/Do what?/

The feeling of Schuldig's voice in his brain startled him. He didn't think he would ever get used to the feeling. He hope he didn't need to.

/I was thinking of biting his ass. Or maybe he's 'seen' me puking all over his pants, who knows.../

/Schuldig.../

The mental voice was steady, totally unlike what his real voice would be, swinging from his perch on Crawford's shoulder.

/Yeah?/

/It's not impersonal for him./

A long silence followed. Crawford reached the car and put Schuldig's pliant body inside. He then walked around to the driver's seat and started the engine.

/...See you around, Balinese./

/Next time you need counseling, you already know where to kidnap me./

/Sure,/ the voice sounded amused but low, fading in the distance just like the car, /bye... and good luck with your kitten.../

/With my.../

But by the time he could finish the sentence, Schuldig was already gone.


	60. No

_**No**_

"Do you feel attracted to me?"

Crawford didn't even raise his eyes from what he was calmly doing.

"No," he answered.

Schuldig didn't relent. The light of the desk lamp reflected on Crawford's hair and the wire of his glasses; the rest of the room was dark. Schuldig thought that the lighting became him.

"I mean, you know, sexually. Do you?"

"No."

Well, he had tried. Schuldig was about to turn and leave the room when he stopped and looked at his leader again. He wasn't wearing a jacket, or a vest. He wasn't sweating, that Schuldig could see, nor did he seem nervous. His mind was as still as a lake, his hands steady, his features serious.

"If you did," Schuldig whispered, "would you have answered 'yes'?"

Crawford paused for a second, maybe two. Then he continued what he was doing with the same order and meticulousness as before.

"No," he finally replied.

Schuldig fought not to smile.


	61. Halloween II

_**Halloween II**_

"You cannot go out like that, Schuldig."

"And whyever not?"

"Because you are naked."

"That's my Halloween costume."

"Technically, it is no costume at all."

"I'm _undressed_as a pumpkin. I think I'm better at it than most people with clothes on."

"..."

"I'll take your silence as agreement."

"..."

"Okay, if you promise to give me the candy I want, I'll promise not to knock on anyone else's door, deal?"

"..."

"I'll take your silence as agreement."


	62. Names II

_**Names II**_

Schuldig coughed as credibly as he knew how, but, obviously, it wasn't credibly enough.

"What is your problem?"

The good thing about Crawford was that he never sounded offended, only murderous. Schuldig actually preferred dealing with murder than with hurt feelings. He coughed a bit more, just in case.

"None. At all. I'm fine, now. Please, do continue."

"You were laughing."

"I was not. It was a sudden fit of coughing. I choked."

"On what?"

Crawford was narrowing his eyes. Schuldig suspected it wasn't because he needed to squint without his glasses.

"I swallowed and it went down the wrong way." Schuldig said. "Look, we're in the middle of something, can't we just-?"

"It was you who told me to talk dirty to you."

That was true. Schuldig paused. How could he explain...?

"You see..."

"I thought that meant you wanted to hear what my big, hard cock was going to do to your hot, tight ass."

"That part was fine," Schuldig carefully explained, "but then you ended the sentence with a 'baby'."

"And?"

Schuldig blinked twice. Crawford did not.

"Crawford, you called me 'baby'. In bed. You can't expect me to keep a serious face after that."

Crawford's frown wasn't on the disapproving side. It was rather that he was trying to compute what he initially hadn't included in his calculations. Maybe it was an American thing. Maybe in their culture it was okay to say 'baby' during sex. Maybe it meant 'slut' in that context.

In any case, Schuldig found the need to 'talk about things like adults' rather annoying, especially when those things should have been definitely obvious, so instead of trying to defend his case, he started kissing Crawford's chest. Then, he slowly slid down. His argument proved to be valid.

During breakfast, caffeine-deprived as he was, Schuldig considered it a good idea to prove his point.

It was as if, instead of being able to read minds, he could stop time and freeze people in the middle of their stirring their coffee. It was already starting to unnerve him to be stared at in such a silent way when Nagi finally managed to say something.

"What?" he asked.

"I wasn't talking to you," Schuldig replied haughtily, "but I said: 'pass me the butter, baby'."

As if in slow motion, Nagi and Farfarello turned their heads to look at Crawford, who had closed his eyes and was inhaling in the deep way that could be interpreted as Crawford's version of an elegant facepalming.

The idea crossed Schuldig's mind that perhaps 'baby' did also mean 'slut' at the breakfast table, after all.


	63. Cliché II

_**Cliché II**_

"Schuldig, you can't."

"Oh, I can, I assure you. Just wait and see."

Crawford's grip on Schudig's arm become tighter, painful even. Schuldig ignored it. Crawford blocked his way.

"That's not what I meant."

Schuldig pondered his probability of success at kicking Crawford in the groin, running towards Takatori, killing the bastard and getting away alive. He wasn't a precog, but he estimated that it wasn't high. It was still worth a try. He was about to raise his knee when Crawford suddenly kissed him.

/Mmmph...?/

In response to the telepathic question, Crawford forced his tongue into Schuldig's mouth. The press conference was taking place barely ten feet from where they were, only a panel away. It didn't even reach the floor, only hid their upper bodies. Schuldig could even see the flashes and hear the lies while Crawford's mouth devoured his. The fists that a second ago were closed, ready to punch, started to loosen and crawled towards Crawford's hair. Schuldig wondered how obvious what they were doing was to the people who could see their feet under the panel's cover. Then he stopped thinking and kissed back in earnest.

Suddenly, Crawford pushed him away and turned. Not a second after that, a man with a camera and a woman with a mike walked past the panel and stopped surprised when they saw two men gazing dangerously at them.

"Excuse me..." started the woman. Schuldig tuned her out to snap into Crawford's head.

/You win, Crawford. Now, I don't want to gut Takatori as much as I want to gut you./

Knowing that Schuldig would catch his expression without his turning to him, Crawford smirked.


	64. Payment

_**Payment**_

Schuldig did a double-take and ended up staring at Crawford with a doubtful expression.

"Explain," he demanded.

"Are you so sure I can't give you a Ferrari as a present without an ulterior motive?"

"Yes, I am."

Crawford sighed.

"Maybe I want you to suck me."

"If you gave me a car every time I blew you I could have my own Ferrari dealership by now."

Crawford finally caved in.

"Farfarello is going to do something he shouldn't and I want you to let Takatori hit you with a golf club in his stead."

Schuldig made some sort of dramatic gesture to the heavens.

"My fucking job sucks...!" Crawford tossed the keys to him. Schuldig, being preternaturally fast, caught them without hesitation before they hit the ground. "...But at least it's well paid," he added with a resigned sigh.


	65. Shoulders

_**Shoulders **_

Lying on the ground while he watched Crawford beat those assholes into pulp, Schuldig promised himself that one day he would grow to become the best telepath Rosenkreuz had ever seen. And that day, that fucking day, he would fry the brains of all the motherfuckers who had ever raised a finger against him. So good would he be, that no one would be able to trace it back to him (he was not their only punching bag, after all). But they would know deep inside, and they would fear him, and nobody would be able to fuck him over with a couple of ill-directed thoughts- because his shields would be da shit and theirs wouldn't.

When Crawford was finally done and walked near, Schuldig hated him. Well, he had hated him before, but now the wave of hatred he felt was nearly overwhelming.

"I didn't..." he said with difficulty, face plastered against the rough asphalt, "...ask for... your fucking help."

"I didn't do it for you."

When Crawford lifted him, Schuldig saw blood on his knuckles. He didn't care enough to ask if it was his or theirs.

"Ghgghh..." Schuldig moaned.

Not that he was feeling like hugging anyone, much less that bastard, but Schuldig didn't trust Crawford not to drop him midway to the infirmary, so he clung to his shoulders for dear life. Just in case.

"You, precog..." each step hurt like a bitch. Couldn't Crawford just glide instead of fucking jump? "...will I ever... have shoulders like yours?"

Even with his face not-plastered against the asphalt it was still difficult to talk. He hoped he was bleeding onto Crawford's white shirt. He was pretty sure he was.

"No."

Shit.

"You could have lied to me," Schuldig protested against his chest.

"Who says I didn't?"

"Did you?"

"No."

They were getting near the building. Schuldig wasn't looking forward to another visit to the infirmary, but he was in no condition to attend class, and there wasn't a third option. Not one Schuldig would consider, anyway.

"You will grow to become the best telepath Rosenkreuz has ever seen, though. Good enough to fry anybody's brains without leaving a trace."

Against his ear, Crawford's heart was steady. No one would have suspected he had just been in a fight.

"Are you lying to me now?"

Suddenly, Schuldig didn't hate Crawford so much.

"No."

So, he allowed himself to cling tighter. He didn't need, Schuldig decided, to have broad shoulders; he would keep Crawford's.


	66. Relativity II

**Relativity II**

He had caught Crawford's reflection in the mirror some seconds before, so he didn't start when he heard his voice.

"Schuldig, what the hell are you doing?"

He didn't reply immediately. Crawford hadn't sounded especially appalled, not even more than mildly curious. He probably thought it was his duty to inquire. Schuldig made another try. Then, he came to the conclusion that asking was going to be faster.

"How can you do it?"

Crawford wasn't aware he had ever done anything remotely similar to what Schuldig was apparently doing.

"Do what?" he calmly asked.

"Smiling." Schuldig kept making faces on the mirror: showing his teeth, hiding them again behind tightly pressed lips, going for a slop-sided approach... "You can smile at people and make them confide in you. Clients trust you and your damned smile. They always think my smirk is creepy and that I'm plotting something. It's fucking unfair; you're always plotting much more than I do, but they believe your smile to be honest."

Crawford smirked. Schuldig was pretty sure that couldn't be called a smile. It was infuriating, really.

"That is because, when you smile, you're thinking of how stupid they are," Crawford explained, "but when I smile, I'm thinking of how clever I am."

Schuldig stared at him as if he had said something terribly stupid, but then he remembered a similar expression on Nagi's face when talking to Schuldig and ended up thinking that most things were, in fact, relative. So he turned back to the mirror and tried again.


	67. Curiosity

**Curiosity**

When Nagi was curious, he surfed the Net.

When Schuldig was curious, he dove into the subject's mind.

When Farfarello was curious, he ripped the object of his puzzlement apart.

Crawford was never curious.


	68. Names III

**Names III**

"Don't call me that."

Schuldig tried to stop dead at that, but it was pretty difficult at that point.

"What do you mean 'that'? It's your fucking name," he said instead.

"Call me 'Brad'."

"Why?"

"What do you mean 'why'?" Crawford had narrowed his eyes, but he didn't stop either. "That's also my fucking name."

"Alright, but why now?"

"Because we are _fucking_, Schuldig."

Okay, in retrospect, Schuldig figured that he could have deduced that without external help, but it was still out of character for his team leader.

"We're not Japanese, Crawford," he said with the maximal amount of snide such a short sentence could hold, elongating the 'ee' sound as a sign of his utter contempt at the foreign culture, "you're not going to magically come if called by your damned given name in the middle of it." He made an abrupt pause at that, suddenly alarmed, "...are you?" Crawford's deadly glare was somewhat softened by the flush, and the sweat, and just the _sex_ of it all. "And just for the record, please, do call me Schuldig. Being called 'sweetheart' could be a serious turn off."

"I think I will call you 'prick'."

"Knock yourself out, _Brad_."

It was obvious that Crawford was refraining from telling him how much of an asshole he thought Schuldig was, but if anything, Crawford was a man of control, so he just pulled abruptly out, flipped Schuldig over and thrust inside again, arching Schuldig's back by the traditional method of gripping his hair and pulling.

"Ah... yes... God, yes, Brad...!"

The voice sounded too sweet and breathless to be real, but Crawford's cock didn't particularly care and Crawford came like an idiot, shudders taking over while a very small part of his brain was already banging its head against the wall, knowing without a doubt that Schuldig was never going to let him live this down.

So much for control.

He knew he didn't have it in him to keep it up (in more ways than one), so he leaned over Schuldig, taking his cock in hand and jerking him as fast and hard as he knew Schuldig would take, panting against his nape, biting his shoulder, whispering in his ear.

"Come for me..." the word 'prick' was already on the tip of his tongue, "... sweetheart."

And, with his last thrusts and a couple of masterful jerks, Schuldig did.

A bit later, when they had had the time to come down from it, Schuldig's voice said, muffled because he had buried his head under the pillows, "I won't mention today if you don't, either."

It was a better bargain than Crawford had expected.

"Deal," he accepted, still sprawled on his back by Schuldig's side.

"Bastard," Schuldig muttered into the pillow.

But when Crawford smacked his ass in retaliation for the insult, it had been without real force. And the hand stayed on Schuldig's ass after that, so Schuldig chose not to complain.


	69. Colour III

**Colours III**

When they brought their orders, Schuldig looked the glass of white wine with open disgust, bordering sheer hatred.

"How can you drink that shit?" he asked.

Crawford smirked and made a show of his first sip. Only when the glass was once again on the table did he reply.

"It matches my suit."

"Ha, ha, very funny."

Only much later did Schuldig start to suspect that Crawford hadn't been joking.


	70. Forgiveness

**Forgiveness**

Some activities left a lot of mental room for thinking. Doing the dishes, cleaning his gun, surveillance work... Schuldig wouldn't have expected that half-carrying, half-dragging a battered Crawford was one of them. But it was. He still didn't know why Crawford had done it. If he asked he just would be told that it had been the best option -Crawford's standard reply to absolutely everything- so he didn't bother. He knew that Crawford was conscious, though, if only because he wasn't a complete dead-weight (for which Schuldig was grateful, because the bastard weighed a fucking ton, he must have bones of lead, because it sure as Hell wasn't the fat)-

"Okay, I forgive you."

The words cut off his thoughts so neatly that at first Schuldig couldn't believe that he had been the one uttering them.

"I wasn't aware..." Crawford's voice was low and slow, as if it was a great effort to let it out, "that I had done anything... that warranted... your magnanimity."

"Oh, fuck you. Can't you just shut up and accept it gracefully for once?"

Schuldig decided that walking straight and getting out quickly wasn't as important as avoiding the potential obstacles that could make Crawford trip and fall, dragging him down, so he made a ridiculous bee-line following the clearest path. The place was a fucking mess.

"I'm not feeling... very graceful at the moment, Schuldig."

Schuldig "Mmmmdd" in reply. The matter was still bothering him, so he pursued it.

"You could at least ask what it is I'm forgiving."

Crawford didn't exactly sigh, but he sounded breathy enough for Schuldig to wonder if he was mentally rolling his eyes or he just lacked the energy to speak normally.

"That time when I let Takatori... hit you with a golf club."

Schuldig kept his silence after that. At least for a while.

"Don't tell me you allowed a building to explode on your ass so that I'd let that grudge go..."

Crawford couldn't help a snort at the telepath's self-centeredness.

"I let a building... explode on my ass... because it was... the best option... for the team..."

Fucker, Schuldig thought.

Accidentally or not, he could feel Crawford's grip grow marginally tighter for a second without any kind of false step or tripping justifying it.

"What are you," Schuldig asked, slightly annoyed, "an alpha-wolf looking after his pack?"

"Aah..." Crawford's smirk was actually _audible_, "and... what would that make you, Schuldig...?"

"Hn."

The exit was already in sight. Schuldig hated working without Nagi. Schuldig hated working without Farfarello. Telepaths were a nervous breed, they didn't like it when things went to shit and there was no back-up and buildings just crumbled down on... whatever Crawford was supposed to be. And that's why the asshole was making the effort to banter when he should just shut the fuck up and keep his energy, Schuldig suddenly understood. Because for Schuldig the banter was a safe place. Familiar, calming, soothing. And Crawford knew it.

"I've decided," he announced Crawford when they finally, ages later, reached the car, "that the best option for the team had to be, in this particular case, to let that building blow up on your ass so that I forgave you. And, even if I'm not particularly impressed, I'm just generous like that, so consider us even."

He didn't turn to look at him, but he knew that Crawford was smiling when he started the engine.


End file.
